Volkswagen is known for its hot hatches. And the Golf GTI Clubsport S is the hottest ever.

This is a dedicated track car. And here it is on a track.

Not just any track, though, but the Nurburgring. And here we are riding shotgun with not just any driver but Benny Leuchter. He’s won a stack of motorsport gongs on this very circuit – and he’s the man who, since our test lap, has used this same car to post a new Ring record for front-wheel drive vehicles.

As luck would have it, the day of our high-speed ride dawned damp and grotty. So Leuchter wasn’t going to be able to give it everything. Nonetheless, it was a masterclass, an experienced Ringmeister demonstrating how to straighten out corners by mounting every kerb – while the Golf’s suspension kept right up with him, damping out one solid hit after another yet never once firing a shock through the body to unsettle the car’s stance.

Result? All four wheels stay in hard contact with the ground, and all 306 horses can grip on to the surface as the hammer goes down.

It’s a track hero in the making, this. It sounds fantastic, with its stripped-out cabin and free-flow exhaust, and it’s very, very good at going very, very fast. When it runs out of grip, the high-tech sticky diff works well to keep it controllable, and power-off oversteer comes in controllably. Most of all, though, the way it copes with being hammered across bumps is little short of extraordinary.

This is a step up from even the outstanding Golf R, and experiencing it in the hands of a master demonstrates just how good it can be. If it can keep its poise over the kerbs of the Nurburgring, it might even be able to deal with the average British A-road…